Over 800 Million Esports Hours Watched on Twitch in Past 10 Months

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According to Newzoo’s Streaming Platform Tracker, esports fans consumed a total of 803.7 million hours of esports league and event content on Twitch in the past ten months (August 2015-May 2016). During this period, esports content accounted for between 14% to 31% of total hours watched on Twitch. The event organizers dominate this esports content on Twitch, accounting for 71.3% out of the esports hours watched. Riot and ESL combined, are responsible for more than half of these organizer hours.

October was the top month for esports on Twitch with 123.9 million hours watched, or 31.2% of the total hours watched on Twitch. Viewership in October was driven by the month-long League of Legends World Championship and the ESL One New York and MLG World Finals Dota 2 tournaments. The second biggest month was August with 110.5 million esports hours watched. This was driven by major events of the top three esports franchises. Namely, the summer playoffs for League of Legends’ regional leagues, the final of The International 5 (Dota 2), and ESL One Cologne (CS:GO). March was the third most active month, generating 94.8 million hours with events such as the Shanghai Major and the Intel Extreme Masters Katowice. December was the quietest month for esports, with 49.7 million hours watched, or 13.8% of Twitch’s total.

TOP ORGANIZERS TAKE LION’S SHARE OF VIEWERSHIP

From August 2015 to May 2016, event organizers’ channels accounted for 573 million hours of esports viewership, or 71.3% of all esports hours watched on Twitch. The remaining 28.7% went to the re-broadcasters such as SummonersInnLive and DOTA2RUHUB. The above graph presents the share each organizer takes of these 573 million hours. The top seven organizers account for an impressive 90% of these hours. Even more impressive is that 51% of these viewing hours are generated by just two organizers: Riot Games and ESL.

Riot Games hosts the leagues and the World Championship for League of Legends, undeniably the most popular esports franchise at the moment. Riot’s many regional leagues across multiple days and time zones ensures a very constant creation of esports content, driving esports hours watched on Twitch. For ESL, esports hours come from multiple franchises and especially from large events. The Intel Extreme Masters and ESL One tours generate huge viewership spikes on Twitch for Counter-Strike, Dota 2, League of Legends, Hearthstone as well as other titles. These major events make ESL the largest independent organizer in the esports industry.

The other 3.2 billion hours watched on Twitch between August 2015 and May 2016 consisted of consumer streams as well as streams from pro-players. In an earlier post this year, we detailed how esports content is a big driver of viewership peaks on Twitch and explored the most watched genres.

Methodology

This data is collected via the Twitch API as we do for many streaming platforms, after which the video content is segmented across different segments (e.g., esports vs consumer hours) and attributed to specific organizers and broadcasters.

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